on a breezy night in Miami, scientists start their d
at work, one team heading out on water the other
staying dry on land. Both groups hope to witness a rare
and intricate natural event. Coral spawning when
colonies of coral reefs reproduced by simultaneou
releasing rice sized eggs and sperm. It's an underwater
blizzard of birth. Scientists say could help protect
florida's coastline because their offshore and because
they're relatively close to shore and just under the
surface, they actually act as very effective wave
breaks, Breaking waves offshore before they hit the
coastline and that reduces the amount of C penetration
into coastal areas and reduces the amount of flooding.
Studies have found healthy coral reefs can reduce as
much as 95% of the waves energy. This skeleton is
and it's very hard, very dense and it acts as a very
effective breaker of waves. It' like a sea wall under
the ocean and this is actually tremendously heavy.
grows much more slowly than the staghorn corals, which
are relatively light and it's much denser, but it's an
even more effective wave break corals like these can
prevent more than $5.3 billion in potential flood
damage for us property owners, according to a 2021
study published in the journal Nature sustainabili
It's a natural defense line, but it's in desperate need
of reinforcement. Global warming is the main
existential threat to coral reefs, warming waters
causes coral bleaching a process where corals turn
white and exist on the brink of death. New waves of
coral diseases are devastating reefs. Water pollut
overfishing and dredging aren't helping either. Nearly
90% of Florida's coral reef has been decimated over the
last 40 years according to Noah. For these reasons,
this is another really pretty coral Professor Andrew
baker works with a team of PhD candidates at the
University of Miami's Rosenstie School of Marine and
Atmospheric Science. They are responding to nature's
call for backup. These are your babies. These are my
coral babies. Yeah, I'm somethi of a coral. I don't
know, foster mom or like midwife by selectively
breeding corals off of florida and caribbean coasts. T
not only re grow coral reefs but create more resilient
coral. Let me put this in like some other terms. Is
this basically you have frozen the eggs and sperm and
we did in vitro fertilization. Yes, absolutely.
sperm. We can't freeze that at the moment. A little too
complex for us. But we're thinking about it but we were
able to free sperm. And yes, in vitro fertilized. This
is kind of a fertility clinic for corals with the goal
of helping offspring be created that can survive. It's
a slow process. So this is almost a year old. It was
born in september it can take 5 to 10 years for certain
coral species to become an adult colony, which is why
the Rosenstiel school is working on another line of
defense. We want to merge basically ecology with
engineering. This is C. Hive, a shoreline protection
system. It's hexagonal hollow and hospitable enough for
corals and mangroves to grow on, it works as it's been,
but when it submerged and it can work as let's say a
nerve bag when we were by the shore. So we are sure
basically the shock engineering lead land off roads.
Barbary goes and his team of PhD students are testing
the structure in a massive wind and wave simulator that
can reach category five hurricane conditions. It
successfully reduced wave energ in the lab. Barbary
goes is ready to test it in the field. There are three
C. Hive projects that are currently under permitting
one of which is actually going to be right below this
water right here off the coast of Miami Beach. It's
something you won't be able to see. But what you can
see are these homes that are not too far away and
that's the point. These seat how structures are meant
to break the wave energy and prevent the water coming
close to homes like these. But there are limits. These
are not a cure in themselves. These are the band aid to
the problem breeding stronger coral and sea hive
structures can't compete against hurricanes worsened by
climate change. Take Hurricane It was a very sad
thing because you know, we work very hard to keep our
house beautiful and safe. Key. Largo resident victor
Farinas watched live security footage of the category
four storm flooding his home and then, you know after
seeing and the cameras when the water was going in and
all the destruction and we couldn't get into two days
later. Well, it was, it was a sad story. The damage was
costly. We had a we had a big damage, you know, big
losses. It took him four years to finish repairing the
home. Even has bothered. It was I think it could be a
lot worse. It could be one day a point of no return. So
even if the innovations are Band AIDS, Farinas says any
attempt to reduce the damage is worth it. If they can
work on something now, thinking on that, I think it's
fantastic. I think that would help a lot as it turns
out, a solution to preserving the land may lie in
what's out in the sea, laura Magarri, no Newsy Miami.